Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm

A New English Version

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Overview

The acclaimed retelling of the world’s best-loved fairy tales by the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of The Golden Compass—now in paperback, and with 3 new tales!

Two centuries ago, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published their first volume of fairy tales. Since then, such stories as “Cinderella,” “Snow White,” “Rapunzel,” and “Hansel and Gretel” have become deeply woven into the Western imagination. Now Philip Pullman, the New York Times–bestselling author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, makes us fall in love all over again with the immortal tales of the Brothers Grimm.

Here are Pullman’s fifty favorites—a wide-ranging selection that includes the most popular stories as well as lesser-known treasures like “The Three Snake Leaves,” “Godfather Death,” and “The Girl with No Hands”—alongside his personal commentaries on each story’s sources, variations, and everlasting appeal. Suffused with romance and villainy, danger and wit, Pullman’s beguiling retellings will cast a spell on readers of all ages.

For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm

Praise

“Pullman’s Fairy Tales offers something unique: the chance to watch a master storyteller think through these most foundational of tales. . . . It is fascinating.” —The New York Times

“You didn’t know you needed to reread Grimm. You do. This is a grand and great book. . . . I read it ravenously, rapturously.” —Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked and Making Mischief: A Maurice Sendak Appreciation

“Zippy! . . . These tales are about plot and economy and speed [and] make great bedtime read-alouds for children who can handle a little gore. . . . The original tales weren’t for children, of course; they were for everyone. So is this book. . . . Pullman is both erudite and funny. . . . He has fun with dialogue, and is particularly snappy with dwarfs. . . . You know what? He crushes it, as the youth of today are wont to say. . . . His translations are perfection.” —The New York Times Book Review

“It is such a pleasure to read these tales again, to experience their strangeness and richness, their violence and beauty, their sheer nonsense. . . . Reading Pullman’s version it is impossible not to hear Pullman’s own gentle voice; he is present on every page. . . . [His] interventions work brilliantly.” —The Boston Globe

“Excellent . . . His beginnings are like invitations that cannot be refused. . . . Pullman shows how completely he understands the Grimms. . . . [He] pays homage to the Brothers’ pioneer work and simultaneously breathes new life into a great, venerable tradition of magical storytelling.” —Jack Zipes, Los Angeles Review of Books

“A real pleasure to read . . . This is the kind of writing that stands up to years of bedtime repetition. . . . The author’s best appearances are in the notes, which are often as entertaining as the stories themselves. . . . Swiftness and clarity, he says, were his guiding principles; to which he has added wit and invention. . . . Beautiful or grotesque, the mad poetry of these tales is often delightfully funny too.” —The Economist